Legion Retribution Paladin WoW PvP Guide | 7.3 Talents

This guide will cover supplemental information for Retribution Paladin in Legion. Bear in mind that as the meta develops in the early stages of the season, you can expect to see some changes to the following information. All information in this guide has been provided by Mystic (EU Regionals Qualifier, 7x Rank 1, 10x Gladiator).

Tier 1

Because Executioner’s Sentence and Consecration don’t work particularly well in PvP, Final Verdict is the best talent choice for your first tier. This talent offers more consistent damage than the other two options.

Tier 2

Zeal is the most consistently good talent option for this tier. The Fires of Justice is an alternative talent choice if you’re able to maintain high up-time while only attacking a player that is standing away from the rest of their team. In every other situation, Zeal is the best talent for your DPS in an arena match due to its ability to strike multiple targets.

Tier 3

Because of its consistency for getting CC onto enemy players, Fist of Justice is the best talent for this tier. Selecting this talent allows you to have the most consistent CC setups onto enemy healers, something which is incredibly important during arena matches. You can play with the other two talents, though it highly depends on the comp you are running and the comp you are facing. Blinding Light can see play if your team’s strategy is to rush down one target as quickly as possible.

Tier 4

In every matchup where you want to maximize single target damage, Blade of Wrath is the best talent choice. Overall this talent offers you the most consistent damage if you plan on training one target. If you are playing a comp that tends to deal AoE damage against stacked opponents, then Divine Hammer is the suggested option.

Tier 5

If you are playing against a team with a melee DPS, then play with Eye for an Eye as it gives you mitigation against physical attacks. Because most teams have a physical DPS in the current meta, this will almost always be your talent choice. If you are playing against a team without a physical DPS, then Justicar’s Vengeance is the optimal talent for this tier. With that in mind, only use this ability if you have a Divine Purpose proc, otherwise the ability simply costs too much Holy Power. If you are not playing Divine Purpose, I don’t recommend using this talent.

Tier 6

Perhaps one of the strongest mechanics for Retribution Paladins in Legion is Divine Intervention. This talent literally prevents you from dying when struck with an attack that would otherwise kill you. This helps you avoid agonizing losses from not using your bubble in time. Moreover, this talent reduces the cooldown of your Divine Shield by 50%, something which comes in handy over longer games. Even though this talent was nerfed in 7.1.5, it is still the best talent option in PvP.

Tier 7

Divine Purpose is the primary talent choice for this tier against any team that is likely to spam CC you on your Avenging Wrath. This talent also synergises well with Justicar’s Verdict when you aren’t playing with Eye for an Eye. That being said, Crusade is an alternate (albeit niche) talent choice for this tier. The only time you should play this talent is if you can guarantee that you will have full uptime with your Avenging Wrath. If you know you won’t be CC’d during your wings, this talent allows you to deal crazy amounts of damage.

Tier 1

Your talent choice for your first tier of PvP talents is determined by two factors: how many CC effects the enemy team has and what kind of CC effects the enemy team has. Relentless is extremely good against caster cleaves and against Rogue/Mage due to these comps having spammable, long duration CC spells and multiple DR categories. Adaptation is better against physical cleaves in which you are likely going to trinket a CC (like a stun) every minute. Alternatively, if you really want to control when your trinket is activated, you can play with Gladiator’s Medallion.

Tier 2

If the enemy team has multiple physical DPS, then Sparring is the best talent on this tier. Against teams with more stable damage with one or no physical DPS, Reinforced Armor is the better option.

Tier 3

Jurisdiction is the primary talent option on this tier. In almost every single popular Ret comp, you will be stunning the healer every time it is off CD. This talent allows you to consistently land stuns, which is really important when playing setup based comps like Ret Hunter. Law and Order is an alternative talent choice for this tier, but should only be selected if you don’t need stun range (ie when you are going to be training the target that you will be stunning). This talent makes it easier to connect onto enemy targets that are kiting you. This also comes in handy when you are playing with a class that does not have a reliable snare effect.

Tier 4

Luminescence is the primary talent choice on this tier for PvP. This talent is a really good way to help dampen AoE pressure caused by enemy teams. Because of this, it easily outperforms the other two talents in a 3v3 setting.

Tier 5

You have two talent choices for this tier. For arena, if you are playing against a comp with a Stun, Silence, long cooldown Fear, or Horror effect (which is pretty much every team), then Blessing of Sanctuary can be the optimal talent choice. You can use this talent to consistently dispel CC effects from your healer. Alternatively, you can preemptively use if on yourself if anticipate taking a CC. You can also play Vengeance Aura in some matchups. This talent is good against teams with spammable Fear effects (pretty much any Warlock team) in which you don’t really need to dispel Fears on your partners (due to them passively breaking by DoTs).

Tier 6

Lawbringer is easily the best talent on this tier. It represents the biggest DPS increase of all talents on this tier by making your Judgement deal passive damage. Moreover, this talent gives you bigger windows to use your finishing abilities, which makes it easier to swap targets (something you often do as Ret in arena). With that being said, Hammer of Reckoning is an alternative talent that can be taken when playing with Crusade as you can use it to extend the duration of your 15 stack Crusade buff.